Wetlands in flux: looking for the drivers in a central European case

Tomasz Okruszko,Okke Batelaan,Martin Wassen,Stefan Ignar,Jarosław Chormański,Jan Szatyłowicz,Tomasz Berezowski

doi:10.1007/s11273-018-9613-z

Abstract

Planet Earth is undergoing significant changes which are driven by natural and anthropogenic factors. However, it is difficult to identify the drivers and their effect on the environment and ecosystems because there are many interdependencies. In this study we present a multi-parameter approach to assess the effect of changes in human-induced and natural drivers on a wetland ecosystem. The study area is one of the most prominent European wetlands: the Biebrza Basin, located in north-eastern Poland. We analysed long-term (ca. 1960–2000) changes in meteorology, hydrology, soil and vegetation, and also conservation history. This approach enabled us to identify interactions between environmental change and management. We found significant trends (1960–2012) indicating climate change: increases in temperature, evapotranspiration and earlier start of spring floods. We identified (1970–2000) a shift towards drier vegetation types after drainage. However, we also found that restoration measures that were implemented have mitigated climate change effects and have led to increases in soil moisture and wetter vegetation types. We conclude that, if carried out sufficiently frequently, the management measures implemented in the Biebrza Basin, which are a combination of different restoration measures (blocking drainage, not clearing aquatic vegetation, bush removal, mowing), can to some extent mitigate the effects of climate change.

Highlights

We are currently in the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000), an era that has arisen since the Industrial Revolution, in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change
For Biebrza we identified a number of management measures that may mitigate the effect of climate change
Higher summer temperatures and evapotranspiration combined with no significant change in precipitation has not led to drier soils

Summary

Introduction

We are currently in the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000), an era that has arisen since the Industrial Revolution, in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change. Human interferences are large scale and manifold and include extraction of resources from the geosphere, interference in the cycles of water, carbon and nutrients in all spheres, large-scale land-use changes, and exploitation of natural resources from terrestrial and marine ecosystems (Steffen et al 2011; Corlett 2015). This results in significant changes in the rates and directions of many abiotic and biotic processes and in ecosystem changes that alter vital conditions for life and concomitantly cause species extinctions (Hautier et al 2015). Global change research on one hand focuses on analysing global trends in carbon, temperature, cycling of water and nutrients and biodiversity (Vorosmarty et al 2010; Liu et al 2015) and on the

Methods

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Conclusion